Tableau Reviews

I use the solution mainly to monitor the main KPIs and to basically show aggregated numbers of very important metrics and certain business environments. Basically, that's what I use Tableau for.

You can basically do anything with it. There's a lot of customizations you can try to explore when using Tableau. You can do a lot of things in Tableau. Even though some things are maybe not as straightforward, there are lots of solutions you can find online. There's a very good community where you can specifically find the answers to any kind of problems that you might have with Tableau. That's what I like about it.

It is easy to use. That said, it makes it possible so that you don't only make, for example, a very simple bar chart. There are lots of different charts that you can make in Tableau. Even though it requires customization and sometimes a lot of googling to find out how to do certain things, that's what makes it powerful. You can basically do everything with Tableau.

In my experience, it is stable enough.

There are already connectors to almost every single major database and service that you can possibly think of.

The installation is very straightforward, very simple.

In the last year, I haven't really used Tableau much. Therefore, I don't really know what new features there are currently or if there are fixes or improvements that have occurred in the last year.

Maybe the price could be a bit cheaper, especially if you're a personal developer that uses Tableau just to explore smaller data sets and you're not a company or something like that. Specifically for learning purposes, it could be cheaper. I know there is a student license, however, there could be a cheaper option for people who are maybe just starting to explore data and to use data visualization tools. 

I've used the solution for three and a half years. I don't use it in my current work at the moment.

The stability is fantastic. There are no bugs or glitches. Its performance is reliable. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

While my understanding is that the solution can scale, since my work basically was project-based, we didn't have a lot of occasions where we had to really scale up in our work. I can't exactly say how good or not good the scalability is. That said, in my personal experience, I didn't have any problems with it.

The users on the solution varied from project to project. Usually, it was in the dozens or so.

I've never contacted technical support in the past. I can't speak to how helpful or responsive they are. 

The very first data visualization tool I used was Tableau. Tableau was how I was introduced to the field of data. Before Tableau, I hadn't actually explored any other data visualization tool.

The installation is very straightforward and simple.

The implementation process took at most five minutes. It probably takes longer to download the installer than it is to actually install the file depending on the internet connection.

Typically five to six people were needed for deployment and maintenance tasks. That would depend on the scale of the project, however. 

I was able to handle the implementation myself. I didn't need any assistance from any implementors or consultants.

You do need to pay a licensing fee, however, there aren't any additional costs. 

I was previously a customer and an end-user.

I would recommend the solution to other users and organizations. It's a very powerful data visualization tool.

I would rate the solution at least a nine out of ten. There's always room for improvement, however, in my personal experience, Tableau is up top.

We primarily use the solution in order to get to know the data. Companies get to really explore and feel like the creators of their own destiny. Tableau is very different from and the other BI technologies I have used. They say that the main goal is not a dashboard; you're altering your exploration of the data.

Tableau in French is translated roughly to a blank page. You can do whatever you want on it. In that sense, Tableau is so amazing. It really helps us manipulate and understand data in interesting ways.

They have advanced statistics features that you can easily apply to your data. For example, I can do very quick calculations. In other software, I would have to code a bit to really work on that logic. In Tableau, it is drag and drop. You can drag and drop to calculate the annual growth year over year. It's so simple. Boom, there you have it. 

They have advanced forecasting features. You can just select your dataset and select which model that you want to apply. You can use a stack, linear, exponential, or logarithmic algorithm. Tableau actually lets you drag and drop in order to see what a build is going to be like. Forecasting is rather new. It was introduced last year. 

The maps and colors and interface are all fantastic. 

The attention we receive from the partner manager would be an issue for us. The use case to have them is a bit niche. Not everyone wants a cookie-cutter analysis and it ends up being plain and not very specific. It's nice sometimes to do that. The expert analysts work on the solution once or twice or three times, and they get to a final dashboard. However, if you use a Tableau final dashboard, you can feel that it was not designed to just be used as a dashboard. Playing with that dashboard is not the end-game. It is not the final objective. 

There are two types of users. There are those that are smart and proactive and constantly discovering new cases. Those are the ones that will benefit from Tableau. The others tend to just want to use dashboards, and they won't get as much out of the experience.

The data entered into Tableau must be clean. Otherwise, it won't work properly.

The support for vendors could be a bit better. There isn't much helpful communication happening.

My company has been working with the solution for about five years. In terms of myself, I have only worked with it for two and a half years.

We do have salespeople from Tableau that look to us and they do give information. However, I asked a month now today if they could give us a heads-up on Tableau's new features and Tableau's new pricing scheme for the new commercial people that have been entering the company. Our partner portal is not working anymore. We haven't been given much attention from the partner manager. We're not mad, don't think about that. However, it is something we need access to.

I stated that point with them. The salesperson from Tableau was sending emails to the partner manager to set up a one-hour chat with them to go over new features and in regards to the onboarding to new people. She hasn't answered. It's very volatile on their end, as they do change their personnel very often, and it's very difficult to keep track of that. They do not say, "Hey, Adrian, I am leaving the company. This person is the one that's going to be taking care of you guys. Let me schedule a meeting." That has been an issue. 

We are using the latest version of the solution at this time. 

We're partners and we're currently working with Tableau.

Those considering the solution must be aware that Tableau is not an end-to-end platform. Tableau is a data analytics platform that works perfectly well, however, it has to be given an input that is clean, that is perfect. The information has to be very structured, very clean, very perfect. Once you have that, Tableau works very, very well. However, if you think that Tableau is going to solve your data problems as a whole, you are confused because you need a middle manager to help you with that.

Some people have used the Azure components to do the data clean, and preparation and finally put it into a data warehouse or a database in an imperfect fashion. After that process is done, then you can connect Tableau. Not before. That will be a mistake. A lot of companies have suffered that due to the fact that they weren't aware they needed clean data.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten due to the weakness on the data preparation side. It is not a weakness as they do not brand themselves to be clear the data needs to be clean, however, so no one should be shocked. I love it for the most part and find it a very interesting solution.

The feature which I value the most about Tableau is its ability to plot nonstandard charts/graphs, such as coxcomb, streamgraph, chord, sankey, and hexbin charts, etc. The map feature is cool, too. For now, it can integrate with Mapbox and other WMS services. I wish in the future there were more choices.

Unlike most of products which have a limited period for trial use, Tableau Public is free, and because of that, our team is able to hold a regular workshop, in which each team member can have chances to share of what he/she learned from using the tool.

I think dashboard and story can still improve. For example, the placement of sheets on dashboard are quite tedious work, especially when the page is long. The automation of adjusting size of sheets has given us a hard time to place sheets neatly on the dashboard, even though the intention is good. As for story, just wish there could be more templates.

Two to three years.

I think Tableau is quite stable, but it is likely to be an effect from another service, such as Web Map Service. Whenever there’s problem with the WMS, Tableau hangs with it.

Not yet.

Fairly good, since there are lots of forums and tutorials on the web which you can find.

We used IBM Cognos back then, but it’s really not easy to use and since it’s an integration of variety of services, it’s quite confusing sometimes. Plus it required training lessons, which aren’t cheap at all.

The initial setup is straightforward and easy.

I think Tableau could try to have different types of pricing and licensing packages, since there are a variety of users with different needs. For example, some users prefer to buy a license for one time only and use the service without upgrade for a long period of time, but some prefer monthly subscriptions.

Besides Cognos, we also evaluated Power BI, SAP Lumira, Pentaho, OBIEE, BO, Spago, etc., but most of them are either too expensive, lack functionality, have limited usage of charts, are hard to use and unfriendly.

It’s really an A+ product. Other than being a customer, we also suggest to our clients this product.

Tableau's strength is visualization. If a report/dashboard is presented in visualization, the end user can easily connect with the data compared to a tabular format.

We created a dashboard that displays booking and shipping orders with month-to-date rolling. Executives get a better understanding of the organization as soon as they open this dashboard everyday.

There is lot of improvement needed on Tableau extracts. Right now, Tableau doesn't support updating extracts with only changed records. We are doing full extracts everyday, which is utilizing a lot of resources.

More than two years.

No.

We are limited with the Tableau extract functionality, which is causing an overburden on resources.

Technical support is very helpful and prompt on their service, a very knowledgeable support team.

No.

Follow the documentation provided. It is a very straightforward setup.

If the user base is huge, try getting enterprise level licenses. If not, you can get desktop licenses for power users.

Evaluated a few options: QlickView and OBIEE.

First try a proof of concept with one data set using Tableau. Present it to the user community. Try to work with an implementation partner. Training is essential for power users.

Desktop – primarily ease of use, TTM, for ad-hoc and reusable analyses and visualizations.

Primarily TTM. The product is used by a number of different groups throughout the company – marketing, services, product engineering...

Server scalability and pricing. Tableau was considered but rejected for a large scale in-house analysis and reporting solution. Even with a large-scale implementation (eight-plus cores), it was decided that Tableau probably wouldn’t scale to the level needed and at that level, was costly.

Desktop was brought into the company five or six years back. Server instances soon followed to support smaller groups.

Desktop installation is easy and straightforward. Out-of-the-box usable.

We have a central IT group that handled server deployments and now handles corporate-wide desktop license maintenance and support with the vendor.

The desktop is fairly intuitive and easy to get started with. Training (on the product, data viz/scientist) is needed for deeper analyses.

As with any solution, do your homework. Understand what it is you’re trying to solve. Tableau is just one of many tools/solutions implemented across the company.

We are a consultant, and it is our main product for consultancy.

It is deployed on the cloud as well as on-premises.

It is so easy to do a lot of things. There is a lot of flexibility and creativity in this product. In other products, you don't have this flexibility.

I would like Tableau Prep to be integrated with Tableau Desktop. I would also like more customizations for tables.

Its setup should be simple. It is complex to deploy if you work in a test environment.

I have been using this solution for four years.

It is stable.

It is easy to scale. It is suitable for small, medium, and large enterprise

Their technical support is great.

It is complex. If you work in a test environment, it is complex to deploy. It should be more simple. You need someone who can help you with deployment.

It is reasonable based on what it offers.

I would advise following Tableau Blueprint in your deployment. There are guidelines that will help you.

I would rate it a nine out of 10.

I primarily use the solution in order to utilize the graphs. It offers a good diversity of graphs and I can manage different data sets together with Excel. I can publish it for my manager, if, in the future, I'm going to use it at work. 

The solution offers good capabilities in terms of responding to my requirements. My dataset is so small and I don't need any complex graphs. It makes it very simple.

The solution is very stable.

The initial setup is quick and easy and you don't need special outside assistance to set everything up.

The integration with other program languages, like Python, needs to be better. I know the capability is there, however, there needs to be better integration. There needs to be integration for machine learning and AI. That would help data analysts and data scientists quite a bit.

I've only been using the solution for a few weeks at this point. I'm working on gaining some experience and familiarity with the product.

I've found the solution to be quite stable and reliable so far. I haven't used it long, however, I can't recall it crashing or freezing. I haven't experienced bugs or glitches. Its performance is good.

There might be about 20 people in our organization that use the solution.

I'm not sure if we will continue to use the product. Currently, I've only used it for a few weeks, and I'm learning it. However, our organization seems to like to work with Oracle. I'm not sure if we will focus on that or not in the future.

I've never used Oracle's technical support in the past. I can't speak to how well they help users with issues or how fast they respond.

I've worked a bit more with Power BI.

Our organization also works with Oracle's Analytics.

The installation was very, very easy. I didn't have any issues at all. It wasn't complex.

The deployment took less than 15 minutes. It was very fast and seamless.

I handled the implementation myself. I only had to download it onto my own PC.

Our company hasn't yet made a decision on the product in terms of long-term usage. I'm not sure what the licensing status is at this point.

We're just potential customers and end-users of the product. We don't have a business relationship with Tableau. I'm very new to the product and still really just testing it out to see how I could potentially work with it in the future.

I'm working with the latest version of the solution.

Overall, in my short time using the product, I've been largely happy with the results. I'd rate the product at an eight out of ten.